The Beat Within

-Scott, Correctional Facility in Chino, CA “The links between a bizarre time perception, and an indeterminate future” There’s a peculiar sort of deformed time experience called inner time where a smaller unit of time, like a day seems endless, and a larger unit of time, like a week seems to pass more rapidly. In the history, of our peoples there are only five distinct social groups known to experience this warped perception of time. World War I POW’s, prisoners in the death camps during the holocaust, chronic tuberculosis patients of the 19th and early 20th century, unemployed coal miners of

-Frederick Mason, USP Tucson in Tucson, AZ To this point, I’ve written nearly six hundred essays from USP Tucson, but before I was sent here, I was writing at other places. In fact, I’ve been writing since about the third or forth grade, on through high school, through college and beyond. But I remember writing a scary story and I did it as a co-op project with a juvenile while in county jail. I didn’t realize how it affected others, but it is a reminder that writers can have an impact on others, even if it’s of the horror genre. 

-Daniel Ballard, San Quentin State Prison, CA When I was younger I had dreams. Then I came to a realization, around fifteen or sixteen years old that I defined a dream of what actually a dream was: just a dream. Nothing more, nothing less, due to the fact that I can lay down tonight, close my eyes and dream of something or someone I have no knowledge of and feel very distant from.  So, my actual dream is a goal, something while I’m wide eyed awake that can be placed and put into a proper perspective. While doing so, I